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Monday, March 17, 2014

Characteristics Of Enlightenment

In Eighteenth-Century Europe And Its
ImpactIn England, Scotland, and Naples.

Introduction

Interestingly,
there were many things that England, Scotland and Naples had in common.
Enlightenment’s characteristics of eighteenth-century Europe held definite
impact in all three countries. This paper included arguments of Anthony Pagden,
Roy Porter, and John Robertson. This discussion was based upon the readings of
Pagden’s The Enlightenment: and Why it Still Matter; Porter’s The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold
Story of the British Enlightenment; and Robertson’s The Case for the
Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples 1680 – 1760.[1]

The three
nations, England, Scotland, and Naples, were (mostly) the focus of the texts by
Pagden, Porter and Robertson. Porter discussed the Enlightenment at large
throughout Europe. He discussed changes from the dark to the light. Pagden
agreed with Porter that men moved from mystical thinking of the Middle Ages and
Renaissance to a more scientific and secularization time. Robertson said that
men believed that material betterment initially went along with the idealism of
Enlightenment as being closer connected to the passions, the processes of moral
judgment, and human nature. Men in the eighteenth century delved deeper into
political and economic investigations. England had a true monarch, while Naples
had a duke with the title of king, and Scotland shared its king with the more
dominant England. The two subservient did not have the economic nor political
powers that England had in the eighteenth century. However, the state’s
citizens had all changed in the 1700s from being controlled in thoughts and
deeds to the new and improved civilizations of the Enlightened.[2]

Pagden

According to
Pagden, the Enlightenment held different thoughts than those of earlier times.
The seventeenth century and the Renaissance did not hold the same key, which
created the western thought. Pagden argued that the Enlightenment changed the
thinking of racism, and “all humans not only belonged to a single ‘race’ but
also share a common identity and thus belong ultimately to a single global
community – a cosmopoli.”[3]
Men broke away from the Catholic view called the “law of nature,” which was one
of the three distinct Christian laws.[4]
The three laws in order of “perfection”
were the divine law, natural law, and positive laws.[5]
Thomas Aquinas and the Thomists had, according to Pagden, said natural law was
actually accessible to everyone. This change of thought, along with the study
of Aristotle, Pagden said changed the constructs of “how human societies should
be built: namely, that all humans are by their very nature social beings.”[6]
Men congregated due to fear or society,
they were passionate, and could possibly be rational. Pagden said

The eclectic… uncompromisingly,
was the philosopher who trampled under foot prejudice, tradition, antiquity,
universal agreement, authority – in a word everything which subjugates the mass
of minds.[7]

Pagden
articulated that rationalism came out of England, due to their philosophers who
put the science of man before the subjugation by God or monarch. This idea then
conquered France and Germany. The Church had led man to commit atrocities in
God’s name and gave unparallel power to priests. Pagden wrote that religious
conflicts kept monarchs week, and in England, it led to the regicide of Charles
I who believed in the divine right of kings. After the Reformation, England’s
monarchs agreed to rule by certain regulations set up by the people, who were
the wealthy nobles. Also, Anglicanism did not have the worship of idols that
Catholicism had, but the religious beliefs were obviously enough (along with
those powerful nobles) to remove the idea that the king was chosen by God.[8]

Religious
practices and beliefs were profoundly different in England compared with the
rest of Europe, according to Pagden. The British, “despite having provided the
Enlightenment with some of its most radical precursors… are said to have taken
a much more cautious view of the intellectual upheavals” and were more inclined
to keep their own religious beliefs and practices.[9]
Pagden argued that because there was so many religious sects within England,
Christianity probably seemed “less menacing” than it did in the rest of Europe.[10]

Even if this were the case, there
was still quite a bit of suspicion of those that considered theirselves
Enlightened. There were numerous Diests in England too, but many kept
themselves hidden. In fact, Pagden wrote, men did not want to speak of religion
in a lot of situations. Prudence was the key for the perfect English gentleman,
according to Pagden. Interestingly, most philosophers did not come out and say
that they were against religion, or that they did not believe in a
creator, even if they thought that way. The author said that more than a few
had a “willingness to accept the continued existence of those [they knew] to be
wrong.”[11]

Philosophers were
secularized Christians who considered themselves “the guardians of human kind.”[12] Scientists (like Francis Bacon),
philosophers (Thomas Hobbes), and philosopher politicians (Edmund Burke),
changed the control of thought of the populace from the monarch to themselves.
According to the author, these philosophers told everyone that they were as
equal as the crown. These thinkers communicated that they were actually better
than the despot. The king thought only of himself, and not the people, while
they, the thinkers, wanted everyone to be liberated from the tyrannical thought
control of the thrones of kings and priests. They imparted the knowledge,
according to Pagden, that all men progress, they improve and their “nature
changes as their living conditions change.”[13]
Englishman John Gray pushed for “a universal emancipation.”[14]
Thus, the idea of divinely sanctioned monarchy vanished and the concept of the
Enlightened people rose.

Pagden said that
even in Scotland, people “were proud to call themselves enlightened” and
philosophers, yet these words did not necessarily mean the same thing in all
locations.[15] Pagden
agreed with J.G.A. Pocock that there was not just one single ‘Enlightenment’
but were several “Enlightenments.”[16]
Pagden included the fact that the Church of Scotland did not have the same hold
over their members as that of the Catholic Church. [17]
Scotland’s historian William Robertson wrote the History of America and History
of Scotland, “were comparable studies of human actions and behavior,” and was
to understand mankind as a species in certain groups, but not necessarily as
nations.[18] There were
several different kinds of histories and philosophical scripts written at
different times and in different locations, but they all were written around “a
vast repertoire of past customs and laws” that created “a panoramic account of
the evolution of all human culture.”[19]

Porter

Roy Porter agreed
that human nature moved from the “bad old ways of the bad old days” to the
modern age of knowledge and natural science.[20]
England’s elites wanted “deliverance” from Popery and the Calvinist dogma of
predestination.[21] Porter said
that their collective memories had been “scarred by the Civil War” that “had
bred ‘enthusiasm,’ that awesome, irresistible and unfalsifiable conviction of
personal infallibility.”[22]
Porter wrote “light was dawning” and “Holy war was going out of fashion,” which
countermanded Pagden’s words that

It was not the
recognition of error or any willingness to accept the possible validity of
divergent opinions that had ultimately compelled the Christian churches in
Europe to relinquish their hold over the judgment of the individual. It was
defeat on the battlefield.”[23]

Porter argued
that the British Isles swayed toward naturalostoc styles of family, politics
and education, materialism and imperialism. Magic, witchcraft, superstition and
supernaturalism were no longer en vogue, yet “everyone still craved glimpses of
the extraordinary.”[24] England’s educational “panacea” changed the
way that children (boys) were raised and taught.[25]
After all, girls that were over educated “deprived the world of its fairest
ornaments.”[26] The
Enlightened age included lights on the streets, so the world was literally lit
with new instruments derived from new sciences, which were the result of new
learning. Porter alleged Britain’s new belief was that all “Knowledge is
power,” but apparently really just for the male portion of society.[27]

England as the
“cradle of liberty, tolerance, and sense” did not see the reprisals of The
Terrors that France did, perhaps because it was “the birthplace of the modern”
and already had a more moderately equal form of government.[28]
Quoted by Porter, Edward Gibbon wrote, “Freedom is the first blessing of our
nature.”[29] England
transferred the belief of royal prerogative to the idea that “political
legitimacy could spring only from consent.”[30]
This consent of the people meant the landed male gentry, and not the credulous
ceremony-needing rabble of the lower orders, or any woman. England remained
severely patriarchal, while more literate. Porter expressed that the “battles
of the pen – against sword, censor, and rival pen,” was crucial to the English
Enlightenment.[31]

England’s gentry
and middle class were expected to know the works of Locke and other
philosophers, which were delivered with ever increasing momentum through the
printed word. Later Enlightenment thinkers, who were separate from the
pre-Enlightened philosophers, “were preoccupied with rethinking man’s place in
Creation.”[32] New forms
of works, such as novels and pamphlets were what the Englishmen wanted. The “Rights
of Man spoke directly to the cobblers, printers, weavers and carpenters who
were the soul of urban radicalism and the torchbearers of plebeian
enlightenment.”[33] The new
self-made man was celebrated by Darwin and others, as “progress proved the
ultimate Enlightenment gospel.”[34]
Porter said that some Brits wanted the change that occurred in France, while
others feared it as news continued to drift across the channel. Porter reputed,
“Modern attitudes were inseparable from the explosion of print culture.”[35]

Porter thought
“Britain experienced profound transformations during the long eighteenth
century” and the “shifts in consciousness helped to bring… changes about” by
numerous intellectual connections and “loops between London, Edinburgh and
Dublin.”[36] The loss of
Scottish sovereignty to the English crown in 1707 was humiliating to some, but
was also considered the next evolution of Scottish society to others. Scotland
kept some of their own legal, cultural and educational practices, yet Porter
contested that the Scots held little ownership to original Enlightenment
thought and practice “largely because such a delineation merely reflects later
nationalisms.”[37] After
joining with England, the barbaric state advanced because of newspapers, clubs
and improvement societies. Porter speculated, “The Scots felt mighty pleased to
be enlightened – and affluent – at last.”[38]

Robertson

John Robertson
studied comparisons of Scotland and Naples and reported them throughout his
book. He agreed with Porter that the English were confident in their liberty,
but opposed his belief that the English contributed greatly to the
Enlightenment. Robertson agreed with the idea that the intellectualism was the
reflection on the societies that used it for the improvement of human
condition. Robertson argued against Pagden and said that the Enlightenment was
a continual movement in different areas and still held many of the same
principles. The Infiltration of printed documents, naturalism, self-interest,
commerce, Epicureanism, new science, metaphysics that led the world to God, and
the legality and morality of monarchism were some of the same points that
Scotland and Naples held in common with the rest of Europe. Robertson agreed
that the Enlightenment was an “historical phenomenon
rather than an arbitrary” act “which took root in very different intellectual,
social, and political settings across eighteenth-century Europe.”[39] And, according to Robertson, it was
Vico and Hume that illuminated “the common intellectual foundations of
Enlightenment in the two countries.”[40]

Scotland and
Naples were similar, yet distinctly different and were “two distinct, contrasting
contexts.”[41] Robertson
gave information on how both governments were separate, yet were still
subservient to a greater political entity; Naples to the Pope, and Scotland to
the King (or Queen) of England. Both countries were commercially weak, under
checks and tariffs for their imports, and both had revolts during this time.
Both had, according to Robertson, “major thinkers interested in the study of
human nature, political economy, and the progress of society, and committed to
the betterment of life on earth regardless of the next,” yet held very little
connection with one another.[42]

Interestingly,
Robertson’s account of anti-atheistic trials in both countries included not
only outright denial of Christ, but also ridiculing theology and/or Scripture.
Robertson said that Naples disliked the idea of anything non-Christian and the
love of wealth, while Scotland could not abide any disrespect for Scripture or
denying the Trinity. The outcome of each person’s trial was “critically
dependent on the personal circumstances of the accused, and on the relation
between the ecclesiastical and civil authorities.”[43] People of both nations argued over
separation of Church and state, as well as the rivalry of clergy and nobility.

Arguments and
discussions in both Naples and Scotland included theology, philosophy, history,
antiquities, law, politics, and economics.
Robertson wrote on how libraries held books on religious controversy,
moral philosophy, dictionaries, and other foreign books. These were acquired by
“notorious dissidents, heretics, and libertines” of the academic and middle
classes.[44] Learned men
visited others of the same ilk and “often also opened fresh channels of
correspondence” and exchange of thought and documents.[45]
And, apposing Porter’s view that the Scots held any original creation, Roberson
gave an example of the “formal but voluntary institution of a distinctive kind,
the Masonic lodge.”[46]
However, he also agreed with him as Robertson said that there was “no evidence
that they promoted philosophical discussion.”[47]
Nonetheless, Robertson argued that it was the political economy, rather than
radical irreligion, that combined patriotic and cosmopolitan adaptations to
social circumstances for the betterment of human kind.

Conclusion

This paper included
the thoughts of three men on the Enlightenment in England, Scotland and Naples.
The three books were Anthony Pagden’s The Enlightenment: and Why it Still
Matter; Roy Porter’s The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story
of the British Enlightenment; and John Robertson’s The Case for the
Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples 1680 – 1760. There were beliefs in
separate Enlightenments, and yet others thought there was a singular one
throughout Europe. The ideas of mankind moving from barbarism to civilization,
from Papal and monarchical control to individual liberty, and the rise of the
middle class through education and printed materials were the factors of
change. Some people were happy about changes, while others were not. Women and
the lower societies were still excluded from voting and rising from their
station even while their literacy rose. As the light faded, the children of the
Enlightened disdained the ideological individualism and hedonism of their
parents, and, according to Porter at least, took several steps back as they
went into the future.

Bibliography

Pagden, Anthony. The Enlightenment: and Why it Still
Matters. New York: Random House,

2013, Kindle Edition.

Porter, Roy. The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold
Story of the British Enlightenment.

New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 2000.

Robertson, John. The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland
and Naples 1680 – 1760.